Terrorist suspects detained in France, UK

DEBKAfile was founded by a team of journalists in June 2000 as an independent Internet Web site, providing an intelligence and security news service. February 10, 2017, 8:38 PM (IDT)

Suspects arrested Friday in a foiled terror plot in France had just started making the same powerful explosive used in the ISIS-directed Paris and Brussels attacks, and they appear to have been inspired by the terror group, a source close to the investigation told CNN.

French police “thwarted an imminent attack on French soil” when they arrested four people, including a 16-year-old girl and three men, in cities across France, the interior minister Bruno Le Roux said in a statement. The girl had pledged allegiance to ISIS in a cell phone video, the source said.

All four suspects are French nationals, a source familiar with the investigation said.

Counter-terror police have arrested a man at Gatwick Airport as he disembarked from a flight from Iraq.

The 44-year-old man from Hertfordshire was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack, Scotland Yard said.

Officers from the Counter Terrorism Command said they stopped the man, who was flying back from Iraq.

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